


Blurring the Lines

by titC



Series: February 2017 - Month of Twu Wuv! [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Flowers, Gen, because I’m a snob, because omg, not-so-sneaky Latin, sneaky Unsteady reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: From a prompt by UpQuark:Post S2 E13. Luci calls Linda 'from the road'. Conversation ensuesand an anonymous prompt on Tumblr:Linda contemplates Maze not having a soul and what that might mean for them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [upquarkAO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/upquarkAO3/gifts).



> I hope you'll both like this... and that it's okay I merged your prompts.

“If I die, I just… die.”

Linda hadn’t been expecting that. She hadn’t even much thought about it – Maze was a demon from hell, after all. She hadn’t imagined demons could die, and stay dead. Now the words were stuck in her head.

She rearranged the huge bouquet Lucifer had sent her before disappearing. _Thank you, Doctor_ , the note had said. Just that: _Thank you, Doctor_. She could hear him say it, picture him looking at her with a bright fake smile and a studied, open posture then suddenly looking away and rushing out of the door. She’d put the flowers on her desk, then next to the window, then back on her desk again. She didn’t know whether she wanted to see them or not, whether she could cope with the reminder of the last week.

Chloe dying, Lucifer unraveling, Maze crying as they were trying to revive him. Hearing about the tall black guy fighting security to keep a patient in her room, about a little girl crying outside of her mother’s door. Going for drinks with Maze afterwards thinking they’d won against all odds, forgetting everything but that they’d all made it. That they’d all survived.

And then, a few days later – the flowers delivered one afternoon, Chloe’s phone call later that same evening; her panic and anger and worry. They’d all rushed to meet her at the penthouse, to look for clues as to his whereabouts but mostly to look after Chloe, still easily worn out and fragile after her poisoning. They’d found his phone, a few old suits, alcohol, and not much else. Ella had gone down to check if the Corvette was still there (it wasn’t), Linda had kept the Detective seated on the couch and not running frantically around looking for answers, and Maze had cursed him and his mother and his father and then poured alcohol for everyone but Chloe.

“He’d kill me if he knew I wasn’t following your doctor’s orders, Decker,” she’d said.

“He’s not here. What do you care? He doesn’t.”

“He does.” Chloe hadn’t answered, looking more and more heartbroken as she went through his phone. No one was surprised she knew his password. She seemed smaller and smaller in the big sofa, curling around the thin block of plastic and glass with all the little things that had made up his life here, all the little things that made Linda’s throat tighten and Chloe’s eyes tear up, too. His calendar with appointments with _Dr Linda_ , a few business meetings for Lux, little notes to himself too – _5 years and a half topside today_ , said one. One day just had a picture of a tombstone with _Father Frank Lawrence_ engraved on it. In his pictures folder, there was a beach captioned _is it real?_ There was Amenadiel looking very drunk, Maze brandishing Asian-looking swords and Trixie grinning at the camera from her mother’s arms, both wearing antlers and Christmas sweaters. And he’d left it all here.

They drank an entire bottle of Lagavulin between the three of them, trying hard not to look at the shroud-covered piano where he’d spent so much time. Chloe in particular averted her eyes, as if it held too many memories. Maybe it did, for her.

They didn’t find any clue, of course. He was just gone.

 

The next morning, as she was trying to decide what to do with the flowers, Linda’s phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

The caller took a deep breath on the other end, and a familiar voice said, “Doctor.”

“Lucifer! Lucifer, where are you?”

“A petrol station.” He sounded… flat, somehow. “I have to cancel our next appointment.”

“That’s okay. When do you want to reschedule?” Let him say yes, let him say yes…

“I think you know I’m not coming back.”

“Why is that?”

“Are you trying to fit in a last session on the phone?”

“Well, you called.”

“To cancel.”

“You could have just left a message on the office voice mail.” He didn’t answer. He didn’t hang up on her, either. “What happened, Lucifer?” Still nothing. She could hear a couple cars driving by, the screech of a bird. He was outside, maybe leaning against his car, probably smoking. “What happened down there?”

A long exhale – she could picture a plume of smoke floating up from his lips, fading into the warm morning air. “I got the formula.”

“You did. You saved Chloe.”

“How is…” A pause. A breath. “I hope you liked the flowers.”

“They’re fine. And _she_ misses you. She knows something went wrong, and she doesn’t understand what. She’s afraid she scared you off, I think. And Maze is furious, but mostly at your mother.” His mother, who had come to her office because she had something upsetting to tell him. She didn’t need to ask if she’d finally gone through with it; and anyway Maze had told her about Chloe the night before, on their way to the penthouse.

“I’m not coming back.”

“What are your plans then?”

“Oh, Doctor. Just to be myself.” Why did it sound like a bad thing when he said it? “I am – well, you know what I am. Why should I pretend otherwise?”

“Lucifer – ”

“Yep, that’s me. The devil, Doctor. The living embodiment of all things evil. The Adversary. My father will rue the day I was created, and that’s on him. I will ruin his creation. Watch me.”

“That’s not you.”

“Of course it is.”

“Lucifer…”

“Goodbye, Doctor.”

She stayed there on her chair, looking at the door, hoping her first patient would be late so she could have time to compose herself.

 

In the following days, Linda found it hard to get back into work. Every patient deserved her entire attention, and yet every time she saw the flowers, every time her eyes fell on the little frame that covered the bit of wall he’d destroyed… She felt sick. Like she’d failed her patient, her friend, her – whatever he was. Neither. Both.

Linda picked up a dead leaf from her desk. Maze’s words echoed again in her mind. Lucifer was out of her reach for now and maybe for ever, but she still had friends here. A demon who wasn’t really that demonic, really. A demon who’d been unable to go through with shocking Lucifer into cardiac arrest, who’d cried when she’d thought he wouldn’t come back, who’d come to coax Linda out of her paralyzing fear when she’d finally learned who they were. A demon who called her _friend_ and smashed beer bottles over the head of anyone looking askance at Linda and who smiled at her with such affection… She was a violently gentle soul and what did it mean she didn’t _have_ one?

She grabbed her phone and went through her contacts until she fell on the picture of a curved knife, and hit call. She waited for Maze to answer while carefully removing a few more shriveled leaves from the still bright green stems.

“Doc?”

“Hi.” Right. She hadn’t thought too much about what to say. How to say it. There was a little silence, a little pause. A breath between the words.

“So I was thinking, want to try that new cocktail bar I told you about?”

Linda smiled. “So you can mock their bartender?”

“You know you love it.”

“I do.” Maze making fun of new places where they skimped on the vodka or used the cheap gin was always a good distraction. And afterwards they could go to the good, Maze-vetted places.

“I’ll pick you up at 7, that ok?”

It was.

 

How was she going to get her answers? Hey Maze, so you have no soul? What does that mean? What can kill you? How did you get out of hell? Can you get back there? Does this mean you’ll never visit me in my cell when I end up behind my own personal door? Would you, anyway? How do you know whether someone deserves hell?

Learning about Lucifer and Maze had been… terrifying, she’ll admit. Not only because, well, _Satan_ and a _demon_ but also because it meant it was all true. The stories were all true; and not just stories. Linda knew that she was no saint. She deserved no heaven. No fluffy clouds for her, no rivers of milk and honey – not that she expected any from what Lucifer had told her. She’d always found comfort in the idea of nothingness after death. Now, now that she knew there was something, and also a reckoning of her life… that comfort had disappeared.

She checked her makeup in the mirror of her office bathroom. She could remember the quick showers she’d had after Lucifer’s visits back when they had their little arrangement, smiling at her disheveled reflection and feeling pleasantly relaxed and mellow. Would she have changed her approach back then, if she’d known? Could she have been a better therapist? She dabbed some concealer under her eyes, made sure her lipstick was staying on her lips and not settling in the little wrinkles around her mouth. Maze may have no soul, but she also had eternal youth. And a half-burned face, so there was that. _I have wrinkles and a soul_. Was it a fair bargain?

She jumped when she heard the front door open, although she knew Maze wasn’t big on respecting locks. “Stop hiding in the bathroom, doc!” She pushed the door open and frowned at Linda in the mirror. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Not nothing.” She curled her hands around Linda’s shoulders. Fighter hands, bartender hands, demon hands; and always gentle on her. “You’re tense. Not afraid of me again, are you?”

Oh, Maze, no. Don’t look so scared suddenly. “No _of_ you, no.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just…” Use your words, Linda. Physician, heal thyself. She turned to face her friend the soulless demon from hell. Damn – or damned, maybe? “What can kill you?”

“Whoa.” Long, light brown fingers slid down to her bare arms. Linda wished suddenly she was still facing the mirror, so that she could see them on her own pale skin. “Not many things. I’m tough. Why?”

“It’s… what you said. At the hospital.” They both avoided mentioning Lucifer. “The soul thing. I don’t believe… I can’t believe I have one and that you don’t. I can’t believe you’d just disappear, and I wouldn’t. I don’t…” She looked up into Maze’s eyes. “Now that I know there’s an afterlife, I need to know you’ll have one too. Just in case.”

“But I won’t.”

“Why wouldn’t you have a soul? Can’t you get one? Is there a way to know? What…” Her voice petered out as Maze’s eyes softened and she dragged her out to her office couch – ah, the irony.

“Sit.” She complied. “What brought this on?”

“I just… nothing, it’s silly.” Maze frowned at her, her arms crossed over her tight-fitting crop top. “It’s selfish, really.”

“Selfish?”

“Since I know all… well, all _this_ exists,” she said with a wave of her hand, “I’ve just always sort of hoped that, maybe, um.” Maze went on with the staring, and she rushed her next words. “I thought maybe then if there was an afterlife I’d see my friends again? Maybe?”

“Well, yeah, I guess most of you will go to heaven, so yes.”

“I told you, I’m not going to heaven.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m not, and I thought I’d see you from time to time. In hell. But you said you couldn’t go down there, and… I’m afraid. I can’t believe you have no soul either, that there’s no way for you to get there anymore now.” She knew she’d kept a feather from Lucifer’s wings in the hope it could bring her back there, and that she’d used it to save Amenadiel. She knew about the coin Lucifer had treasured for years, too.

But Maze only shrugged. “Lucifer always said souls were more of a burden than anything else.”

“Why?”

“Well, no soul, no torture after death. No guilt. When you see the sinners in hell, it seems like a pretty sound argument.” She nodded to herself.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Do I?”

“I know you do feel guilt.”

“Of course not.”

Linda narrowed her eyes. “Yes you do.” When she hadn’t dragged Lucifer away from his mother early enough in the bar, when she thought they couldn’t revive him and had condemned him to a cell in hell and Chloe to death… Yes, she had felt guilt. Linda remembered seeing it on her face in the car as the night lights flashed over her ashen skin, in the hospital as the whine of the defibrillator charging up couldn’t entirely cover her choked _no_.

Maze blinked a few times. “But then – no, it’s not possible. Does it mean…” She shook her head and her half-burned face appeared; and she breathed out with relief when her slightly shaky hand touched the apparent tendons. “I’m still me. I’m still me.” She sat on the couch.

“Of course you are.”

“I’m a demon.”

“But maybe a demon with a soul.” They were so close, Linda didn’t know where to look. Her white eye, her dark eye?

“What is wrong with you humans? What are you doing to us?” She sounded so lost, so unMaze-like in that moment.

What the, well, _hell_ , Linda thought. However short or long a time it is, you’re only free for one lifetime; and it’s not like she held out much hope of a heavenly afterlife anyway. _Carpe diem_ , and _carpe noctem_ too. Seize your demon and don’t let go, don’t let go.

And really, her burned lips were quite soft and sweet and beautiful.


End file.
